The present invention is directed to a conveyor device which receives parts in a desired orientation and conveys a line of these parts to a discharge position where an element of an assembly device will pick up a part to transport it to a point for further assembly.
In order to obtain a line of parts arranged in the desired orientation, vibratory bowls have been used to sort a bulk grouping of produce and to create a line or single file of the parts of a specific orientation. The transport of these parts in the specific orientation from the vibratory bowl to a processing station, which may be a pick & place or other type of escapement, has been met by utilizing either a flat conveyor or a linear vibratory transport system. Neither of these devices have ever had the capability of being easily adjustable to accommodate different part configurations, which are becoming more prominent in automated assembly machines. For example, when utilizing a linear vibratory transport system, a change in the size or shape of the part being conveyed in a single file will change the weight distribution on the vibratory conveyor, which may cause a detuning of the conveyor. In addition, the use of hold-down bars with a vibratory conveyor, to insure that you only have a single layer of parts being conveyed, is extremely difficult because the vibratory conveyor must oscillate over a given vertical distance, which changes with the change of weight in the parts being conveyed.
Another problem with existing conveying devices is the conveying of light-weight flexible parts, such as annular seals, and O-rings. While conveying these in single file and restraining the leading part in the file while picking a part from the exit station, the combined transporting forces on the elements of the file can cause the leading elements to buckle and/or collapse, due to the combined sum of the forces on the individual parts of each element in the line of file.
Thus, it would be desirable to have a device which would allow adjusting the amount of force applied to each part in a line of file so that the sum total of forces for transporting the elements or parts would not cause a collapsing of the lead part when the movement of the file is being restrained while forming a pick & place operation.